b-day, bi-det, bye-day

(in progress) 

August 21, 2023
I am starting to draft this nine days out from my birthday. The hurricane I metaphorically doomwhispered about has hit Los Angeles. I never saw it. I did not know it was happening until two days ago, when my friend Patrick mentioned he was getting supplies with his son Milo, unable to help me in an emergency move situation with little notice and the atmospheric onslaught. I was already gone, in Shanghai, but had less than 20 hours to evacuate my cat Fernie and most important archival or sentimental belongings from my home, which I was the sole lease-owner on.

I have been, since birth, phallic-phobic, terrified of pregnancy, and on the asexual spectrum. In my sexless, teenage first love, that lasted two+ years, and subsequent first heartbreak, I would put a handcloth on my partner’s genitals while we showered together. I said please! don’t let it touch me. If it does, I will get pregnant! I love bathing with others. I spent a lot of time in Japan, where one family shares the same bathwater. Though, you must shower before you bathe. The bathwater remains pristine, despite the transition of lapping bodies.

Edging
May, 2023

I.
I have locked myself
In the bathroom again
Before 8 am
With the lights off
Taking a s(h)itting shower
With trance Enya remixes playing
On Youtube

My sadness is interrupted by an ad
To relieve constipation
Is your poop backed up?
Do you suffer from anal fissures?
Are you full of shit?
I finally reach beyond the shower curtain
To press skip with wet fingers

I am on the precipice of saying to you
Over Enya and running water
through the door
Hold on, I’m just recreating my mother’s womb

II.
We returned to the sea to comb
For miracles
All we found was giant kelp
And bladderwrack
One beached seal
One beached sea lion
Poisoned by acid

S(h)itting on driftwood
(We nearly took home
For the memorial garden
we made for a mystery cat)
We toasted to the beached pair
With plastic cups of Prosecco

The only miracle
We found
Was a rock that looked like the moon
But I questioned its legitimacy—
Who it had been formed by

III.
My roommate accuses me
Of being a hermit
You’re right
What I don’t say is
It hurts to go outside
And not talk about death

I used to stare at the sun
In my courtyard once it became visible
like I would death
Try to find the edge
At which point it became blinding
But that’s the thing about
That which is blinding
There is no edge
Just a finch bullying a hummingbird
now obstructing my edge-play